When Personal Communications and Interviews Appear as Sources
Not all valuable information in a Malaysian postgraduate thesis comes from published sources. Researchers conducting qualitative studies collect interview data. Policy researchers consult experts through formal interviews. Journalists’ interviews, expert opinions sought through email correspondence, and informal conversations with practitioners all sometimes contribute to thesis arguments in ways that require attribution. Knowing how to cite interviews and personal communications in APA correctly is a citation skill that matters for a wide range of Malaysian researchers — and it differs significantly from citing published sources in ways that many students do not initially expect.
The defining characteristic of personal communications in APA citation is that they cannot be independently retrieved by readers. Unlike a journal article or government report that a reader can access through a library or URL, an interview you conducted or an email you received is available only to you. This non-retrievability shapes how APA handles these sources: they receive in-text citations but do not appear in the reference list.
The APA 7th Rules for Personal Communications
In APA 7th edition, personal communications — which include letters, emails, text messages, phone calls, personal interviews, and conversations — are cited in the text but excluded from the reference list. The rationale is that the reference list contains sources that readers can access independently to verify your citations. Since personal communications cannot be accessed by readers, including them in the reference list would create false expectations of retrievability.
The in-text citation format for personal communications in APA 7th is: (First Initial. Last Name, personal communication, Month Day, Year). The full name with initial prevents confusion with published sources by the same author. The date is specific — month, day, and year — because the communication occurred at a specific time that may be analytically significant. The phrase “personal communication” distinguishes this from a published citation even when the author’s name appears in other published work in your reference list.
Example: “According to a senior official at the Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia (N. Ibrahim, personal communication, March 15, 2025), the new doctoral funding framework was still under consultation at the time of data collection.” In-text: (N. Ibrahim, personal communication, March 15, 2025)
Distinguishing Your Own Interview Data From Personal Communications
An important distinction for Malaysian qualitative researchers is the difference between citing personal communications as supplementary sources and citing your own interview data as primary research data. These are handled very differently in a thesis.
When you cite an expert opinion you sought through a formal interview specifically for your research — where the person was interviewed as a key informant rather than as a research participant — this is a personal communication, cited with the format above. The person is identified by name and role, their consent to be named has typically been obtained, and you are attributing their specific professional judgment to them.
When you cite your own research participants — people who participated in your study and whose responses constitute your primary data — this is your own research data, not a personal communication in the APA sense. Your participants are identified by anonymised codes (P1, P2, P3 or pseudonyms), their data is presented as research findings rather than attributed expert opinion, and the source is described in your methodology chapter rather than in a reference list entry. The distinction between these two types of interview citation — personal communication vs primary research data — is important for both citation accuracy and research ethics.
Handling Expert Interviews in Policy and Practice-Based Research
Malaysian postgraduate research in public policy, education administration, healthcare management, and business strategy frequently involves interviews with named experts whose professional knowledge is the source of information rather than their personal research participation. These expert interviews are properly treated as personal communications in APA and cited accordingly, provided the interviewees have consented to being named and quoted.
Before citing a named expert interview as a personal communication, confirm: did the interviewee consent to being identified by name? Did they consent to the specific information being attributed to them publicly? If the interview was conducted under conditions of anonymity or if naming the person would breach confidentiality, do not include their name in the citation. Instead, use a descriptive identifier: “a senior policy official at MOHE (personal communication, March 2025)” or “a managing director at a Malaysian manufacturing firm (personal communication, February 2025).” The date remains specific, but the name is replaced by a role description that protects identity without losing the contextual information the citation is meant to provide.
Why Personal Communications Do Not Appear in the Reference List
A common mistake in Malaysian theses is adding personal communication citations to the reference list — either because the student follows the same procedure for all cited sources, or because thesis formatting software automatically generates list entries for all in-text citations. Personal communications must not appear in the reference list in APA 7th. If you use reference management software, mark personal communication citations as non-exportable or manually delete them from any automatically generated reference list.
The absence of personal communications from the reference list is not an omission — it is the correct treatment according to APA convention. Readers who want to verify a personal communication cannot do so through the reference list, and including an entry would give the false impression that the source is retrievable. The in-text citation (First Initial. Last Name, personal communication, Month Day, Year) is sufficient to attribute the information and signal its nature. Knowing how to cite interviews and personal communications in APA correctly, and understanding why they are handled differently from published sources, ensures that this category of source is attributed honestly and formatted in compliance with the standard your Malaysian university requires.
